Led by Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and president of the Emerson Collective, the XQ Super School Project aims to create schools that are focused on the needs of students. The winning schools — a mix of charter and district schools, most of them new but some of them traditional schools in the process of being reimagined — serve student populations that are predominantly low-income and/or of color.

"Each of these represent schools that don't exist today," Russlynn H. Ali, XQ Institute CEO and a former assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education, told the New York Times. "They are using time in very flexible ways....They are ensuring personalized learning using tech and time, embedded with rigor. That's what each of them have in common."